


The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

by VeryImportantDemon



Category: Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, How Do I Tag, SPN Reversebang, Sam is a little crazy, Sam’s POV, dean is a good big brother, sort of??, the ones who walk away from omelas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 00:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16651174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeryImportantDemon/pseuds/VeryImportantDemon
Summary: He wants to stop, to let himself drop to the ground and finally stop walking, but he can’t. He walks though he doesn’t know where he’s walking to. There’s something inside him that says if he keeps walking, maybe the bells will stop. Maybe he will stop.





	The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my amazing author and their amazing work!!

There is a clamor of bells in Sam’s head. He can think of nothing but the constant noise. Bells should be beautiful, but they are nothing but raucous, too much and too loud and too close and too  _ long _ . They won’t stop. He clutches at his ears, pulls on his hair, sings, talks,  _ screams _ , but nothing drowns out the constant clamor of the bells. Nothing can stop it. Nothing will ever stop it.

 

He wants nothing more than to just stop. His feet ache so terribly, he can’t remember the last time he ate, and his clothes have long since turned into rags. His hair is long and scraggly, his hands shaking. He wants to stop, to let himself drop to the ground and finally stop walking, but he can’t. He walks though he doesn’t know where he’s walking to. There’s something inside him that says if he keeps walking, maybe the bells will stop. Maybe _ he _ will stop. There’s a smaller part in him that says maybe, maybe he’ll find someone else if he walks long enough, someone who knows who he is and will stay by his side so he doesn’t have to walk alone. Someone who will carry him when his feet fail. Someone who he met in the city once upon a time.

 

But  _ he  _ doesn’t stop. That voice in Sam’s head, the one that voices the loudest thoughts, a voice that accompanies the bells, sometimes screams over their impossible pitch. Sam can never see him, but he hears him. He always heard him. He hears the howling of the voice, hears him goading Sam to do awful things, hears him just being endlessly talkative. Sam hasn’t heard a voice that wasn’t in his head since he left Omelas, but how he longs for quiet. Just a few moments of respite that he knows will never come. This is his curse, and he must bear it as he drags himself on. He must atone for his sins, whatever they may be. He must find the city. If he goes back to Omelas, where he began, maybe the voice will be quiet again. Things will be terrible, based on hideous lies, but maybe the voice will be quiet and Sam will be able to sleep.

 

_ If you could just find it,  _ the voice whispers.  _ Just find it. Go back. That child means nothing. The sacrifices to free him were worthless. Their lives are worth more than his. Keep walking. Keep walking, Sammy. Keep walking. _

 

Sam keeps walking.

 

***

 

_ The room where they keep the child is dark. It’s hidden somewhere that could be anywhere, deep underground in a cellar or locked in a broom closet in some government building. They never move the child, though. As long as he has been imprisoned, it has been in the dark and cold. He has grown up there, if what he has done can even be called growing up. He’s stunted and small, pockmarked with scars and bruises and places where he has worn his skin away. He’s barely a child, barely anything. And they will not move him.  _

 

_ He is alone most of the time, but not all the time. People come to see him every so often, but he has no concept of the passage of time. He just knows that they come because the door sometimes opens.  _

 

_ Light floods in and the child cries, pulling back from it. He curls in the corner of the room, the base of his hands pressed to his eyes. He wants it to stop. He wants the light to stop. He’s not used to it, not used to anything but this accursed room. This terrible, terrible place. _

 

_ Sometimes he stays hunched in the corner until someone actually enters his room. It is never to help him. Sometimes the booted feet kick until he cries, kick until he stands, kick until he bleeds. Sometimes they drop a bucket of corn meal and water in the floor, not caring if it spills, and he waits until the light is gone to devour it. Sometimes the door opens, there is no sound for a long while, and then the door closes. Sometimes he hears retching, similar to the way he sounds when he expels the bile in his stomach. But the door closes, the door always closes, and the boy never sees anything but feet.  _

 

***

 

His feet hurt, but he keeps walking. Sam must keep walking. The voice urges him onward, ever onward, across the endless plains. If he walks far enough, walks long enough, maybe someday he’ll go somewhere the voice can’t reach him or he’ll find the golden gates of the city of Omelas and the voice will stop. He just wants to find something, anything, that will silence the constant clamor in his head. He just wants to find something that will soothe his aching feet. He just wants to find  _ something.  _ He has been walking for so long and it has been so long since he’s seen anything at all.

 

_ Just give it up,  _ the voice entices.  _ Give up trying to find someone else. As soon as you find the golden gates… Soon as you go back… You’ll be happy there. _

 

It trails off, laughing maniacally. As it does so, the bells start clamouring again, the two discordant sounds clashing so awfully that it makes Sam cry out at clutch at his ears even though he knows it won’t work. He wasn’t happy there. No one was happy there. Or… Were they?

 

He drags himself onwards even though his eyes are shut so tight he can barely see a thing. He staggers on, not afraid of hitting anything or anyone. These are the plains outside Omelas, a place sparsely populated only by those who walk away. It is very, very rare to see anyone out here. Sam has not seen a single soul in all the time he’s been walking. He hasn’t seen a soul since the golden gates fell away behind him. 

 

_ Open your eyes, Sammy, _ the voice whispers.  _ Look! _

 

Sam doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to do what the voice says. He never wants to do what the voice says, but he has no choice so he does it anyway. He opens his eyes and instead of the endless, flat plains, he sees a figure rising in the distance. The figure rises taller, taller, taller, reaching farther up into the sky than Sam thought ever possible. It’s a lighthouse, he knows, even though he hasn’t ever seen one in real life. And beyond the lighthouse, water. Real water. 

 

He doesn’t stop to think why the voice who has been telling him all along that he is terrible, broken, that he deserves all the terrible things that become of him, that he is not worthy of help or love, that he deserves to rot like the child in Omelas and that it will be the only way to redeem himself from his sins, tells him this. He just walks towards it.

 

***

 

_ The child does not know what happens beyond the four walls of his eternal prison. He does not know that the people who come are all people - men, women, children. They all come and they all see him cowering in the corner, afraid of the light though he had once played in the sun. He doesn’t know that most of them stay living in the joyous, golden city built upon his back. He doesn’t know that the few that don’t stay walk straight out of the gates with no clear idea of where they walk to. He doesn’t know that these people who he has never seen will never be able to unseen him. He doesn’t know that some of the citizens who claim to be happy can’t forget the sight of him, either. He doesn’t know anything but what is inside his walls.  _

 

_ A voice whispers to him in the darkness that he deserves it.  _ You’re here for a reason,  _ it coos softly, the tone almost akin to a mother calming a child but the words far harsher.  _ You’re here because there’s something terrible inside you. They locked you up to protect themselves. Why should they not profit off of you a little?

 

_ The child cries himself to sleep, not wanting to believe it, but the voice whispers in his ear so often that he comes to. What else could the reason be? Why else would he be here, rotting and alone, if it weren’t for sins he had committed? Surely whoever they was, whoever lived in their beautiful Omelas, would not want this for any child. The voice tells him about how beautiful the city is, about the summer festivals they host, about the golden gates that reach for the impossibly blue skies, about how the children play in the streets without a care in the world.  _

 

_ The child wants to cry out, wants to plead that none of that could be possible just because of what they have done to him, right? How is it possible that all of that was because he was locked away? It doesn’t make sense to the boy, but how he longs to see the festivals, the blue skies, to feel the sun on his back and not be afraid of the light because the light won’t mean that someone is coming to his own personal hell. _

 

_ But then the light floods in again. _

 

_ *** _

 

Sam wants to stumble towards the water, drop to his knees, and plunge his face into it. He wants to feel something cool on his skin. He wants to drink, wants to drink deeply for the first time in forever. He wants to wade in the water and strip off his rags and not be ashamed. He wants to cup water in his hands and fling them into the air, watching the droplets glittering as the sun’s light catches them.

 

The sand is coarse, but he can barely feel it. His feet are numb and the callouses so thick he barely feels anything through them anymore. He drops to his knees and the grains scratch at them, too. Sam’s palms are almost as calloused as his feet when he dunks them into the water. The water isn’t cold as he’d hoped when it splashes down his cheeks, but warm to the point of almost being hot. It isn’t even pure water, tainted with the sting of salt, but Sam swallows it anyway. He swallows and swallows until the light touching his back is the moon. It tastes awful, but it  _ tastes _ . Sam is experiencing a sensation other than the bleak nothingness or constant overstimulation of the bells and the voice screeching in his head.

 

Dark and imposing, the lighthouse looms before him. Sam decides it’s time to go see it, something dragging him to his feet. He feels… Energized. He isn’t happy, by any means. It is impossible to be happy on the plains outside of Omelas, impossible to be happy when one has seen what he has seen and has experienced what he has experienced. There is no happiness, but there is something else, something independent of the the black hole in his chest, and that thing is the lighthouse. He needs to go towards it, so he does, making his way across the expanse of the sand to the doorway.

 

It is open, no door to speak of, but there are scratches on one side and holes where it looks like hinges may have been smashed into the frame. There are markings on the other side of the frame, markings like someone who hasn’t chewed their nails off like Sam has long ago dragged them across the soft wood. 

 

There is nothing in the lighthouse but a spiral staircase that stretches up and up and up into the darkness that reminds Sam so much of the darkness in his chest. There is nowhere to go but up so Sam, with the voice in his head mercifully quiet, starts the climb.

__

_ *** _

 

_ The child isn’t crying this time. He’s huddled in the corner but he’s not crying because he’s cried himself out. The light fills the room, floods in around him, and he squeezes his eyes shut around it. “ _ Close the door _ ,” he whimpers. “ _ Close the door, close the door, close the door _ …”  _

 

_ He pleads like this most of the times the door opens, but it doesn’t always work. In fact, it hardly ever works. They stand there and stare at him in horror or morbid fascination. They stand and stare and stare and stare and they only close the door when they want to, not when the child begs them to. He doesn’t think it will work, but on the off chance it does, he tries again and again. _

 

_ The door doesn’t close, but the child hears footsteps. The figure at the door sets inside and the child tightens his muscles, curling in on himself. The only times he hears footsteps in the room are when they throw him his food or when people come in to beat him. _

 

_ “ _ Please don’t hurt me _ ,” he begs, still facing the wall. If he doesn’t look at them, maybe they will take pity on him. The one time he made the mistake of looking someone in the eye, he paid for it.  _ “Please don’t hurt me, I’ll be good, I swear,”  _ he whispers again even though he doesn’t know how he’s been bad.  _

 

_ He waits for what seems like forever, cowering, until a voice speaks. A male voice.  _ “I ain’t gonna hurt you, kid. I’m just sorry I couldn’t come earlier.”

 

_ The child stiffens again, his eyes widening. Someone talking to him… That hardly ever happens. No one talks to him. It’s an unspoken rule. But this man doesn’t care. He’s talking to him! The child whips around, his stubby nails digging into the skin of his arms. Who’s talking to him? _

 

_ The man isn’t tall, but the child doesn’t have much of a sense for that kind of thing. His hair is dark, mostly under a cap except for the bushy beard on his face. He has kind eyes, even if they’re dark like they’ve seen things, seen things like the things the child has.  _ “It’s gonna be okay, kid,”  _ the man says, but he doesn’t reach out to touch the child. It’s almost like he knows the youngster’s fear without needing to ask.  _ “My name’s Bobby and I’m gonna get you out of here.”

***

 

Sam has long since lost count of how many stairs there are. He can’t count very high, but he got to the highest number he could time and time and time again. His legs begin to feel like mush, his muscles jelly and his feet aching something terribly. But still he climbs, climbs, climbs. He starts to sing while he walks.

 

It comes from the city of Omelas. He remembers that much. When he was fleeing from the city, fleeing like those who walk away do, he heard the song and it stuck with him ever since. 

 

_ “Listen, child, and you’ll hear _

_ The sounds of hooves drawing near _

_ Dancing, dancing, grey and green _

_ Joy and riches and gold, unseen _

_ But look closer, closer _

_ No dreams stirred _

_ Look closer, closer _

_ No answers.” _

 

Sam didn’t know the history of the song. He didn’t even know if there was more to it, for the single verse floating on the breeze was one of the only things he could snatch and take with him when he left. But he does think about the words a lot as he climbs the endless twisting stairs of the lighthouse. He thinks about how it reminds him a lot of Omelas - flighty and fancy on the surface but with something deeper and more terrible underneath the thin veneer.

 

That something terrible is the child. He shudders thinking about that horrid closet, that terrible place the boy was kept. He doesn’t see how the people of Omelas could keep one of their own locked up like that for so long. The voice does, though, the voice that whispers in his head as he climbs and climbs and climbs.

 

_ It’s because the child is terrible. There’s darkness in the boy, darkness in you. They were just protecting themselves,  _ it hisses.  _ You must go back. Go back to Omelas. Make up for being one of the ones who walked. You have to go back and fix things.  _

 

Sam clears his throat and sings louder as he takes step after step. 

 

***

 

_ The man is going to free him. The man calls himself Bobby and he says he’s going to free the child. The boy almost starts sobbing again. There is a terrible cycle of horrors that runs on repeat in darkness, but the older man is breaking the cycle. This has never happened before. No one talks to him, let alone says they’ll free him. But this man is doing both.  _

 

_ The boy does end up crying. It’s one of the only things he really knows how to do because it’s one of the only things they let him do. He cries, his tears hot and sticky on his cheeks.  _ “It’s okay,”  _ the man assures him.  _ “It’s gonna be okay. I just need you to come with me, please. I need you to come with me now. I don’t know how long we got.”

 

_ The sense of urgency drives the boy. He forces himself to stand even though he’s still crying. His cries are quiet now, the cries of someone who doesn’t want to be noticed. His legs tremble as he takes a step and then another. He doesn’t move around much in his tiny prison. He doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to get very far. But he doesn’t care because even though he’s sniffling, there’s someone in his hell, someone talking to him and saying that they’ll free him. _

 

_ The man still seems to get that the boy doesn’t want to be touched, so he offers encouragement from a few paces away.  _ “Come on,”  _ he urges.  _ “You can do it. We need to get outta here before they come back, kiddo.” 

 

_ Light filters through the doorway, humming brightly and casting a glow upon the dingy dirt floors. The dirt floors that the boy has spent almost his entire life upon. The boy usually fears the light because most of the time the light means more are coming to gawk, coming to throw things at him, coming to make his life even more miserable. But the light this time means freedom. The light this time means the best he could ever hope for. He keeps stumbling forward, his frail legs barely holding him up. But this time he has purpose and the man behind him.  _

 

_ The man sweeps in front of him, stepping through the door first. He peers down what appears to be a long hall and picks something up from beside the door. It is long and metal, something the boy hasn’t seen in a long time, if ever. He remembers it very vaguely, almost like a dream. He remembers a tall woman with blonde hair poking at wood in a roaring fire with something like it.  _ “Let’s go,”  _ the man says, and the boy does.  _

 

***

 

Sam doesn’t know how long he’s been walking. He only knows that he must be reaching the top soon because he sees something. It’s not light exactly, far too dim for that, but the crushing darkness lifts just a little. Just enough. He takes the last stair and finally finds himself at the top. The moonlight filters through the thin-paned windows surrounding him completely, giving him just enough to fumble around the edges of the circular room at the top of the tower. He finds matches and, with his back to the window, reaches up for the lamp hanging above him.

 

Once he brings it down to where he can reach, Sam strikes one of the matches against his long, dirty thumbnail. It takes a few tries, but eventually Sam succeeds. He cups his free hand around the tiny flicker of warmth to protect it as he slips it inside the lamp. The fire catches and the tiny circular room at the top of the lighthouse explodes with yellow and orange and red and Sam almost sobs with the beauty of it all. He hasn’t seen something like fire in so long. 

 

He drops to his knees but holds the lamp gently, holds it like if he breathes on it too hard it’ll shatter. This lamp is the greatest thing that has happened to him since he left Omelas behind him so long, long ago. He sets it gently on the ground, a safe distance from the seemingly endless staircase, and fumbles for the matches again. Kneeling and basking in the light of his tiny lamp, Sam strikes another match against his nail. The match head bursts into life again, and Sam unashamedly beams. It’s fire. It’s fire, fire, fire. He watches it, mesmerized, until it flickers and dies. He takes the next match and strikes that one, too. And then the next, and then the next. He doesn’t know how long he kneels there, watching the fire flicker and burn and fade and die, but he stays until he hears something behind him.

 

***

 

_ The doorframe is so close. A few more steps. A few more steps and then he’ll be free. Free, free, free. He’ll finally be free. Four more. Three more.  _ “Come on,”  _ the man urges. Two more. The man starts looking more nervous. There’s something or someone else out there.  _ “Hurry,”  _ the man says. He’s growing more and more anxious.  _ “We need to go now.” 

 

_ The boy has one more step when the man takes one of his own. He swings the long piece of metal and he hears a burst of noise in the hallway, and the ringing of bells accompanies it. The boy doesn’t know how to process all of these new things he’s experiencing. There is a dull thump and a thud as the piece of metal connects with something. No, not something. Someone. The person makes a noise, a noise the boy himself makes when heavy boots connect with his stomach. He cries out in sympathy as the man’s eyes dart around.  _ “No,”  _ he says.  _ “No, I didn’t do all of this for him to get locked up again. He getting out of here. He’s getting out!”

 

_ The man starts shouting and the boy falls to his knees, so close to the doorway. He presses his hands to his ears and presses his forehead to the dirt floor. There’s too much. Too much noise, too much light, too much, too much, too much. He can’t do this. He can’t.  _

 

_ He can still hear everything though. There are more voices, more shouting, more bells, more thumping. And then he hears something odd. It’s a new sound entirely. It’s a sort of pop-pop-pop sound. He finally drags his head up from the dirt in time to see the piece of metal his savior had wielded clattering to the ground and the man himself collapsing. The front of his shirt is red, red, red, and he is being dragged away and they are slamming the door in the boy’s face. _

 

_ He stays there, his forehead pressed into the dirt and his hands over his ears, until all of the noise is long gone. He realizes then that the red was blood and the man is dead and he is still in hell. _

***

 

It’s a quiet sound, so quiet that he almost misses it. It’s the sound of waves lapping at something. Sam tucks the box of matches in a pocket of his rags before lifting up the lamp and turning. There’s a boat crossing the horizon. 

 

His eyes widen. A boat! A boat could take him away. A boat could take him far away. Lifting his lamp high, Sam hurries to the window. He presses his free palm against it, watching eagerly as the boat slowly approached, rocking up and down and up and down with the gentle waves. A boat means freedom. A boat means he doesn’t have to keep looking for the golden gates of Omelas again. He can be free. Oh, he can be free! 

 

He doesn’t want to run down the stairs, not yet. What if the boat needs to see his light? So he stays, and he watches, as it draws closer and closer. It gets close enough that he can make out two figures on the front. There’s a man with a cap and a bushy beard and another man with light brown hair and a thick jacket - real clothes. Clothes Sam hasn’t worn in… Well, likely forever. He knows these men. He’s seen these men before, and now they are going to take him away.

 

The younger man looks up. His eyes meet Sam’s fire first but then they travel to Sam himself. Even from this far away, Sam can see his eyes light up. He waves and rugs on the older man’s arm, who waves at Sam, too. Sam wants to sob. He knows them and they’re here to free him.

 

He sinks to his knees, the lantern beside him. He lets out a sob, one he thinks is made of happy tears, and pressed his hands to his ears. He needs to be here. He doesn’t need to hear anything else, not the bells and not the voice that is always screaming at him. He needs to just be. He needs to be in this moment, this moment where he is about to be truly free. This is real. This is real, he tells himself. This is real and he’s going to be free.

 

That is until he opens his eyes. His knees are scratched up by coarse grass and there is no box of matches in his pocket and there is no ocean and no boat and no lighthouse. 

 

_ You think you get to be happy?  _ the voice teased.  _ Oh, not you. Never you. Because you left. You don’t get to walk away from Omelas.  _

 

Sam thinks he’s in a new sort of hell. Maybe living a lie in Omelas would be better.

 

***

 

_ There is nothing for a very long time after Bobby. He doesn’t get food, doesn’t get water, doesn’t get people coming to gawk at him, doesn’t get light streaming in the doorway for him to shy away from. He doesn’t get anything but the heavy silence of his darkness.  _

 

_ Nothing happens and nothing keeps happening. _

 

_ Curled up in the middle of the floor, his forehead to the dirt and exactly where Bobby had left him, the child sobs. _

 

***

 

Sam doesn’t remember getting up. He doesn’t remember starting to walk again, but he does. The endless plains stretch before him and his feet ache and his head pounds and his mouth is dry. He’s walking but with no destination except an idea of Omelas. 

 

The lighthouse is gone and he doesn’t have the matches. He’s wandering in the dark with the bells constantly clamoring and the voice whispering that he doesn’t deserve anything more than living with that terrible lie in Omelas. He guesses that’s where he’s going, towards Omelas, but he doesn’t know exactly. He just points his feet in a direction and walks, like he always does. Omelas is Hell, but he starts to think that anything would be better than this endless nothingness.

 

He doesn’t know how long after that thought it is when things change but something does change. He isn’t alone. He sees a figure in the distance, wandering closer and closer to him. The figure grows as the distance closes and Sam can finally make out that the figure is a woman. A woman, a person, someone! There’s someone there who isn’t him. 

 

When they’re close enough, the woman with long, straight dark hair, looks Sam up and down and speaks.  _ “Where do you walk from?” _ she asks. They both know why she words the question the way she does. The only people in these endless plains are the people who walk.

 

_ “Omelas,” _ Sam says. His voice is scratchy and hoarse from disuse. He hasn’t spoken in so long…

 

_ “Omelas,” _ the woman repeats, shaking her head slightly.  _ “I walked from Omelas.” _

 

Sam’s heart jumps into his throat. People from Omelas have seen the child. She has seen the child and she has done nothing but flee.  _ “Why did you walk?” _ he asks and she shakes her head slightly. 

 

_ “I couldn’t live somewhere I knew that was happening,” _ she says. Sam’s throat tightens again. There are men who tried to free the child, he knows. Why did she not try? 

 

_ “You could have freed him,” _ Sam says. 

 

The woman shakes her head.  _ “Don’t start,” _ she says.  _ “Don’t start being all high and mighty with me, okay? I didn’t know what to do. And you walked, too, so you don’t have room to talk.”  _ Sam falls silent and he doesn’t speak for a good while. The woman shakes her head again.  _ “That’s what I thought.” _ But she doesn’t leave him for his transgression. He knows she is as starved for companionship as he is. 

 

_ “Do you remember your name?”  _ she asks, and Sam frowns. Remember his name? Why wouldn’t he? 

 

_ “Sam,”  _ he says.  _ “Why?” _

 

The woman shrugs.  _ “I’ve met some people who have been walking so long they don’t. I’m Ruby.” _

 

Ruby, Sam thinks. Ruby. He’s met someone, a real person, and her name is Ruby.  _ “How long have you been walking?” _ she prompts, and Sam answers with little thought. 

 

_ “My whole life,”  _ he says, because in a way, it has been his whole life.  _ “You?” _

 

Ruby shrugs.  _ “Don’t know,”  _ she says.  _ “Don’t care, either. Have you heard about what happened in Omelas?” _

 

***

 

_ The child doesn’t know what to do now. He had a taste, the slightest taste of what life could be like outside of his Hell. There is someone out there - even though he is gone now - that wanted to free him. If there is one, there could be more. There could be more, and maybe he can get free. Maybe he can truly be free.  _

 

_ He waits. The thought that maybe there is another one out there who will free him lights a fire under him, convinces him that maybe things will be okay. He still cries, screams, pulls at his hair, and digs his nails into his arms, but he has hope. He has something even if the voice in his head tells him it’s foolish to think so.  _

 

There isn’t another one, you know,  _ the voice says.  _ And even if there was, why would you go? You can’t go. 

 

_ The boy wants to say that he can, of course he can, why couldn’t he, but his voice doesn’t work for much else besides screaming anymore.  _ You’re a good kid,  _ the voice continues.  _ You know this city relies on you. Without you, things would fall apart. You have to stay. If you go, your whole city will crumble. You wouldn’t do that, would you? You don’t do that to all those innocent people?

 

_ Why should they get to do it to him, then, he wonders. He is innocent, too, is he not? What has he done to deserve this? How can he be expected to make that kind of choice, if freedom presents itself?  _

 

_ He is a good kid, he thinks, but he doesn’t truly know if he will be in that moment. Maybe he will be selfish and walk. _

 

***

 

Sam shakes his head. He hasn’t heard a word from anyone that isn’t inside his head since he himself walked. The world except for these endless plains could have been completely destroyed and Sam wouldn’t know. But if something has happened to Omelas… His stomach clenches. He feels guilty, so guilty for wishing this upon those people, and terribly selfish for thinking it, but maybe the city has crumbled and he doesn’t need to go back. Or maybe the city is still there in the midst of a lavish festival,and the child’s suffering is for nothing… Or maybe the city is crumbling and he must go back and try to save it. He doesn’t know which he wants.

 

_ “Something’s going wrong,”  _ she says.  _ “They think… They think the child got free.” _

 

Free, free, free. The word leaves a bitter taste on Sam’s lips, for some odd reason.  _ “He got free,”  _ Sam repeats.

 

Ruby nods.  _ “The people are breaking down. They don’t know what to do, I’ve heard. They don’t know if they should pick a new child, and if they should, how. They don’t know if they’ll be alright without one and some of them don’t want to know that because it means that they kept one of their own underground for that long. It’s chaos.” _

 

Sam thinks for a long time before he speaks again.  _ “So the child did keep the peace? He did make Omelas prosper?” _ he asks.

 

Shrugging, Ruby answers.  _ “In a way,”  _ she says.  _ “He bought them time. But now they’re bickering again, like they were always going to.” _

 

Sam ponders that for another long while before he even tries to speak again. If Omelas is crumbling, then they need a savior. A new child. They will fight amongst themselves and wreak havoc on the mindless populace without one. Maybe… 

 

_ “They say the golden gates are gone,” _ Ruby prompts, interrupting his long, meandering train of thought.

 

_ “Gone?” _ he says. She nods again and laughs. 

 

_ “Gone, gone, gone. God, they cared more for those gates then that child.” _

 

Sam knows that. He’s always known that. He still can’t decide. 

 

_ “Have you slept?” _ Ruby asks. Sam shakes his head. He hasn’t slept in a long, long time. Ruby huma and nods again.  _ “Lay down. I think I can help.” _

 

Sam’s knees pop and crack a little as he crouches down, curling tight into a ball on the scrubby brush. It isn’t comfortable, but he does it. Ruby puts her fingers in his hair, combing gently. It’s a gesture he hasn’t felt in… in so long. Then, she starts to sing.

 

It must be in another language, he thinks, because he can’t make out the words. Or maybe it’s his language and he’s just so tired that his mind is foggy and he slips away. 

 

It is mercifully silent aside from the quiet melody.

 

***

 

_ The child doesn’t know what days are. He had been down here for so long, with no light but the sliver under the door and the ugly harshness of the light that floods in and exposes him when it opens completely. They provide him with food and water at such irregular intervals that it isn’t a good measuring rod. He doesn’t know how long he’s been hoping and praying for someone to come save him, but it feels like forever. The darkness is pressing in. It’s so heavy that it feels real, like a physical object on his shoulders. He’s being crushed and there is nothing but the weight and the voice that’s telling him he’s bad and he deserves this and he’s selfish but he can’t be selfish he can’t leave even if someone did come to get him he couldn’t go because that would be selfish and he isn’t selfish and he has to stay to redeem himself because he has to stay to support the city and-  _

 

_ The door opens and his heart leaps into his throat. The weight lifts off of his shoulders just a little when he sees a figure in the doorway. It’s another man, a little taller than the first. His hair is sandy and there are a bunch of small, circular scars on his face. He holds his hand out to the child and smiles brightly, brighter than the light that frames him.  _

 

“Come with me if you want to get out of here,” _ he says, and the child does. _

 

***

 

Sam doesn’t know if it’s morning when he wakes and he doesn’t know how long he slept. It’s always dark where the ones who walk away from Omelas roam. But he does know that he is alone again. The woman from last night, Ruby, is gone. He can still feel her fingers in her hair and he longs for a touch that isn’t trying to hurt him. She gave him that for just a moment. 

 

He pulls himself to his feet. He knows now that he has to find Omelas again. Someone has to find them. Someone has to make things better. He can’t just wait around. He cannot be selfish again. He needs to help.  _ Good boy,  _ the voice whispers.  _ Good boy... _

 

He starts walking again, and he takes step after step. He knows he is doing the right thing, but his heart is heavy. 

 

Sam wants to be selfish, but he can’t make himself.

 

***

 

_ It’s a lot quieter this time. The child stumbles and falls as he follows the man with the circle scars on his face out so the man scoops him up, carrying him on his back. The child locks his hands under the man’s neck, his breathing labored even though he’s being carried and not carrying someone like the man is. He is terrified he’ll be taken back…  _

 

_ They approach the outside of the building he was held captive in, and the man soothes him as his heart races.  _ “It’s alright. It’s alright, kiddo. It’s nighttime. No one’s gonna take you back. I’ll make sure of that, little man.”

 

_ The child let out a slow breath, his chest shaking. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he’ll even survive going outside. It’s been so long… He buries his face in the man’s shirt, whimpering softly.  _ “We’ll take your mind off it, then,”  _ the man says, humming softly.  _ “What’s your name?”

 

_ The child shakes his head again, whimpering softly. Name? He doesn’t have a name. He’s never had a name and he didn’t think he ever would.  _ “You don’t have a name?” _ the man says incredulously.  _ “Even I have a name. I’m Dean.” 

 

_ Dean. The child likes that name. It’s a nice name, the name of the man who freed him.  _ “We’ll have to give you one, then. How about…”  _ The man trails off, thinking for a few beats as they walk, the boy on his back focusing on the rhythm of his steps.  _ “Sam,”  _ he says finally.  _ “I’ll call you Sam. You like Sammy?”

 

_ The child swallows again. Sam. Sammy. He has a name.  _

 

“Sammy,”  _ he whispers, his voice scratching his throat and barely audible.  _ “Sammy…”

 

***

 

Sam starts to stumble as he drags himself along the plains. He’s been alone for quite some time now after Ruby has left. He’s alone, but at least now he knows what he has to do. He has to go back to Omelas. 

 

He’s still wandering, though. And even though his mind knows what he needs to, his heart doesn’t. His heart aches as he remembers the sacrifices Bobby made, the man he met once. He remembers Dean, too. He remembers the man who actually freed him. He’s giving up what they gave him by trying to return, but… But it’s what he needs to do.

 

Another figure in the darkness breaks his train of thought. A second one? Usually he sees no one and here is a second walker after Ruby. They approach each other, neither speaking until they are close enough to hear each other. 

 

_ “Do you wander?”  _ the other man asks. Ruby didn’t say that. She asked if he walked, not wandered. She asked where he walked from. 

 

_ “Do I walk?” _ Sam asks. The other man shakes his head. 

 

_ “No,” _ he says.  _ “Do you wander.” _

 

_ “What’s the difference?” _ Sam asks. The man smiles at him very faintly, shifting the pack on his back. 

 

_ “Sometimes you can walk and know where you are going,” _ the man says.  _ “If you wander, you have no destination.” _

 

That is a way of thinking Sam has not yet come up with himself. Maybe he does wander. He hasn’t been walking this entire time. He has been wandering. 

 

_ “I know where I need to go,”  _ Sam says. The man shakes his head again. 

 

_ “You do not,” _ he says.  _ “When you try and tame the planes of Omelas, you are always wandering. There is never anything but endless nothingness. You do not walk until your head and your heart know where you need to go. Not all of those who wander are lost.” _

 

Sam falls silent again. He turns that over and over in his mind before he speaks again.  _ “What’s your name?” _

 

_ “They call me Castiel,” _ the man says.  _ “You are?” _

 

_ “Sam. I’m Sam.” _

 

The man nods again.  _ “Do you need to rest and think?” _ he asks. Sam nods and the man takes a step closer. He reaches up, touches Sam’s temple, and then Sam knows nothing.

 

***

 

_ Sam still has trouble with time, even though he is free now. He doesn’t know how long he has been with Dean, in Dean’s home. He just knows he’s there. They rest and Sam grows stronger despite the voice whispering in his head that he’s made a terrible decision and he needs to go back to his prison cell so he can atone for his sins. They rest until one day Dean speaks to him. _

 

“We need to go,” _ he says.  _ “They’re looking for you. They want to take you back.”

 

_ He helps Sam get bundled up and then takes his hand and they leave the house. _

 

“Stay calm,”  _ Dean says.  _ “Don’t act suspicious and they won’t suspect you. We just need to get out.”  _ Sam doesn’t speak but he nods and squeezed Dean’s hand. Dean squeezes back.  _

 

_ They are only stopped once by a man in a cloak.  _ “Whatcha got there, Winchester?”  _ he asks.  _

 

“My brother,”  _ Dean says, tipping his chin up.  _ “He’s been cooped up since he’s been sick. We’re going for a walk.” _ Sam shakes a little as he holds the man’s gaze but eventually he shakes his head and leaves them be as the golden gates loom closer and closer. They are almost there when they hear the man behind them speak. _

 

“Winchester don’t got a brother.” 

 

_ Dean’s pace quickens as the man starts shouting that they found the child, they found the traitor. He’s practically dragging Sam towards the golden gates as more and more people burst from the woodworks, shouting and pursuing them.  _

 

“Go!”  _ Dean shouts. He shoves Sam in front of him, towards the gates.  _ “Go, get out! I’ll find you, Sammy! I’ll find you!”

 

_ Sam squeezes through the gates so easily because he’s so thin. He stops on the other side, thin fingers grasping the gold bars. _ “Dean,” _ he cries.  _

 

“Go! I’ll find you, I promise! I’ll find you!”  _ Dean shouts back. Sam turns on his heel and staggers away as the crowd closes in.  _

 

_ Dean will find him. Dean promised. Dean will find him. _

 

***

 

Sam wakes again alone but he has a new fire in his stomach. He knows where he needs to go now. He’s walking with a purpose and he really is walking, not just wandering. He had forgotten, but now he knows. He deserves to be free and if he focuses his mind, he will find Dean some day. He will find Dean.

 

His steps are steady and his feet barely hurt as he confidently heads in one direction. The darkness doesn’t bother him, and neither does the light. He knows what he needs to do now. He knows. 

 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking, but eventually he sees a figure in the distance. His heart flutters and he picks up speed, getting closer and closer until he can make out who it is. It isn’t Ruby or Castiel or Bobby. It’s Dean. It’s Dean!

 

_ “Oh, Sammy,”  _ Dean calls. He starts running, too, and they’re both running until they collide and Sam holds his big brother like he’ll never let go. Dean is real, not like the falsified lighthouse and the salty sting of the lying ocean. 

 

The only voice in Sam’s head is his own and he knows now where he must go.

 


End file.
